Three Poems by Andrea Potos

AT THE GREEN CEMETARY AND NATURAL PATH SANCTUARY
           For Rosemary

I’m lost on the narrow trails sloping
and curving among the exuberant green of late May.

I suppose my friend is everywhere here,
and that is the point: growing into the earth

now, indistinguishable from fern or maple,
oak or ash. Birdsong crisscrosses

everywhere as I make my way deeper
into the woods. It is supposed to be enough;

I might be too set or greedy, I want more–
one marker with dates chiseled

or raised in burnished bronze.
I want a stone that endures for her name.

*

A LIST,
           for Rosemary, in memory

Today I tried making a list
of all the places you and I gathered
together: Lombardinos for Italian,
LaBrioche for bi-weekly poetry tea,
the Bubble Up Bar for nightcaps,
the bookshops where you’d sit front row
whenever I gave a reading.

And I will never not see you,
settling onto your living room sidechair
while waiting for your signature Bolognese sauce
to find its final perfection for our dinners.
           There you are again–drawing your fingers upwards
through your light hair as you make another
passionate point; your smile widening, ablaze–
you are looking at me as you speak, how easy it was
to love myself in that glow.

*

ANOTHER JUNE MORNING HAS ARRIVED

Anniversary of my mother’s leaving,
exuberance of early summer

and triumph of the peonies, their pink
and white faces spread like joy.

Every year it is the same, I count the days
until her last has arrived.

Every year an early hour
calls the birds to singing.

Every June I remember
how waking belongs to song.

*

Andrea Potos is the author of several full-length collections of poems, most recently Her Joy Becomes (Fernwood Press), Marrow of Summer (Kelsay Books), and Mothershell (Kelsay Books). Her poems appear widely online and in print, most recently in Potomac Review, Braided Way, Poem, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.